What Lindsay Clancy's Jury Decision Means Now

0:00This is the Big Breakdown. A long look back at some of the biggest stories we're covering for you at the Hidden Killers Podcast and True Crime Today. This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Rusky and Robin Dree. Thank you for joining us. The court is getting into session right now. And the judge is about to address the jury in the Lindsay Clancy trial, a hearing just taking place there after lunch. Let's go to the court. I'm going to the jury. At this point, I'm going to declare that the jury is deadlocked and I'm going to declare a misdria. All right. I just wanted to make a comment. And I'm kind of a history buff. During World War II, Winston Churchill was the prime minister for England.

1:01When England pretty much stood against not the Germany alone. And so Churchill, oftentimes, had to talk to the citizens and say, let us brace for our duties. I always liked that phrase. And I thought of that phrase when all of you were agreeing to be honest jury. They agreed to brace for that duty. And each one of you knew how long the case was going to go. You knew how difficult the case was going to be to listen to facts wise. But still you brace for that duty. And I just kind of wanted to ask, you know, I watched every day, day after day, week after week, all of you performing that duty that you're braced for. And I just kind of wanted to let you know, I understood how hard everybody worked in this case. I understood that you all gave everything you could and probably more than you thought you could.

2:03And so on behalf of myself, I just want to thank you so much that you should be proud for what you did. You brace for that duty. You perform that duty. And I just kind of wanted to thank you by half myself in behalf of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Thank you so much. The only thing I am going to ask one more thing is that what I'd like to do is be able to come back and thank you personally. I'm going to have to talk to the council for just a couple of minutes. So if you could stage just for a couple of minutes, not to go over the deliberations, really like that, but just to thank you personally again for just an incredible commitment and dedication that each and every one of you showed here. So I just want to thank you so much. And with that, you discharged. Thanks for all right. No, just wait. And that's how it wraps up.

3:04Lindsey Clancy standing there. Hard to really say exactly how she is feeling. I almost want to say there was a. I don't know, sculling is the right word, but it was it was it was reminiscent of how her expression has been throughout this entire trial. One I think almost. I think what I had said at the end of the evidence that just kind of wanted to echo again, I wanted to compliment all three council. I try like this so hard, so difficult. And so I just kind of wanted to thank the three of you for your efforts and regards to this. And so with that. If you talk, they think we should probably pick a. A status date. Any where we are trial assignment date. I would talk to you.

4:04We are sorry. Sorry. I know I would like to argue with 25 B2 and I have to be done within five days. So I mean, I would like. If possible to have this on for hearing on a motion for required finding reconsideration 25 B2 on Tuesday. And my request, assuming that you deny that motion would be that we in panel the following Monday. That would require a man to check my schedule. And also, so what I'm going to suggest, I understand that's the request. It might. My thinking is to try it sooner rather than later, but I'm not sure that sooner. And it's a situation. I also have to check the trial court schedule, council schedule, witnesses schedule. But my thought would be to try this. You know, if we could do it, maybe sometime later in the fall. But why don't we pick a date, maybe a couple of weeks down the road.

5:05So everybody could get their calendars together and kind of see where we go. All right. What about the 25 B2? The motion for required finding reconsideration within five days. You can file it. We have to have a hearing within the five days. I'd like to, but I mean, I know you'd like to, but I, you know, maybe we could do it later in the week. Maybe not Tuesday. Maybe Thursday or so. Sure. And I'm going to be out of the state. I told the 20 second. All right. Well, as long as it's filed, you are pick, we can do is pick that status date trial assignment date. It actually then do the argument of the 25 rule 25. Okay. Maybe that week of the 28th.

6:07It's supposed to be supposed to set a murder in its field. I'm hoping that that's going to be continued. So I would ask if it's a gradable with the court and counsel. If we could have Tuesday the 29th. Come off. That's fine. So what do we do that 29th? Is that the at two o'clock or nine? Doesn't matter to me. Let's see nine o'clock. Why don't we see nine o'clock? I would come in. We'll have the defendant right now. Yes, please. All set. And the matter of Commonwealth versus Lindsey Clancy, the court to cleanse of mistrial, all prior bail orders remain in full force. And effect this matter is continued just September 29th. 2026 9 a.m. for status trial assignment and the rule 25 motion in the

7:09climate. All right, council. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So there you have it. That is the Lindsey Clancy trial. Round one as best as we can say, round one, hopefully. There is not a round two, but all indicators do appear to point that part will likely be what happens next. You heard Reddington, they're talking about filing a R 25 B2. What that means in attorney speak in this specific situation. It's a filing that allows the defense to renew a motion after a jury verdict. And obviously we did not have a jury verdict here other than a hung jury. It gives the trial judge broad post verdict authority to do one of three things.

8:11It set aside the verdict and order a new trial, which likely is going to be an outcome. Order the entry of a finding of not guilty or reduce the verdict to a lesser included offense such as reducing a first degree murder charge to second degree murder or manslaughter, even if the evidence was technically sufficient to support the original verdict. We didn't get polling done either, which I thought was interesting. That has come up in other cases in Karen Reed, in fact, in Massachusetts. It's a first trial. They argued should have been argued with. There should have been looked at with polling because the argument was that some of that ended up being a double jeopardy case. If the jury had an option to have their opinion be heard across the board, some of those second charges may not have been necessarily necessary. That was the argument not to say that it would have held out, but that was essentially

9:14some of the argument to the best of my memory. It's been a little while there. A little bit different case. It does appear that across the board on any of the charges that Lindsey Clancy was looking at that jury would have not been in any sort of unanimous decision. But again, these are all things. You want to make sure you cross your teeth and you dot your eyes while wrapping up this no matter where it goes because there's going to definitely be a pellet issues here. And Reddington seems very much ready to jump onto that. Your guys' reactions in the comments sections that I'm hearing here so far, not the outcome I had hoped for, but better than acquittal. I see that up there. The one juror is a hero one is saying mistrial officially.

10:16So various folks on every side of opinion in this kind of coming out at the end of the day, not a lot resolved. What has this trial done for the country, for Lindsey Clancy, for justice? I don't know. Certainly more awareness has been brought out, but at what cost? And has the awareness in then led us to better understanding? Awareness is one thing, but understanding and being aware to two kind of different things. I would say certainly, yes, many I think have been had their eyes open to a system that they maybe realize was as damaged as it was. And at the end of the day, I think that that is the justice here is is making sure or putting putting some more steps in place, some more speed

11:22bumps, something, and that really comes through awareness. So we don't have more of this because there are other situations out there, very, very different situations, some are similar to Lindsey Clancy. But every time a child is dead and a woman is involved a mother, it's not just another Lindsey Clancy. There's there's so many tendrils to each and every one of those stories. And a lot of times mental health is at the center of it and pretending that that's not an issue or the thing that plays the biggest role in each and every one of our lives every single day. No matter how scary it can be as to what our brains can do, does nothing to prevent or help future people who've gone throughout their entire life. Like Lindsey Clancy did, she did not have any history of violence or hating her children or her family. She wanted to feel better again.

12:22But when when these sort of brain diseases strike, that's shocking just how little control the person has over what it can do to you. And that's why it is so important to have systems around that understand that function, that work to help those people get through it. And maybe that's that lesson right there, that story is something that will help hit home. Clearly so many elements of this case hit home for so many people connecting it to it in all different ways. The vitriol against Patrick, the the vitriol against her, the all over the place. A lot of emotions in a lot of different ways. This case truly connected with with so many people.

13:23I'd love to hear in the comments what what it was for you. What what connected you to this case? Reading some of the comments here agree with the one juror don't sway your morals for the going trend. She's guilty. Interesting way of phrasing it. Lots of people asking what if it was a man. I mean, fundamentally, I don't know that you can do that in this case because we're talking about postpartum issues.

14:23And last I checked that's that's not really a possibility for a man to experience the dramatic shift in hormones and chemicals that a woman's body will go through in the immediate moments and the months and the weeks after giving birth to a child. So, you know, are there cases where we can certainly compare that? Sure. This one fundamentally not built on the same ground. So, I don't think that that could even really be brought into this conversation for this specific case. It's just it's it's it's apples and frogs. It's it's not remotely the same. So, what happens next? Well, Lindsey Clancy will very likely be remaining at Tukesbury and continue to be essentially in the same holding pattern that she has been in for the last several years.

15:30So, that does mean more care in an environment that is not a prison setting. But for how long? And will the state of Massachusetts want to retry this? I think these are questions that are going to be out there in the ether for a bit. Probably going to see some some noise coming out of the prosecutor's office possibly before the long weekend. But that is hard to say. It is going on to 40 now. Eastern time on the verge of a holiday weekend. And we even heard earlier today from the judge when it was suggested. Maybe they come back into the holiday weekend or reconvene on Tuesday. A shot in the voice that someone may want to spend an extra day.

16:30Even an extra day on this when a woman's life existence is very much at stake. Again, your thoughts as you want to weigh in on this, it's going to be interesting to watch this over the weekend on replays. And to get everybody's thoughts. We've done a lot of reporting on this. You'll continue to see some very interesting videos over the weekend and conversations that we had this week. If you've not watched them, please do so. And we've had a variety of opinions on this program from Jennifer Coffin-Daffer, who we disagree vehemently on this case. To Robin Drake, my co-host every single day, Bob Mata, Shavon Scott, our psychotherapist, and also Eric Fattison at this week as well. But very fascinating conversations to consume.

17:33If you want to not hear screening matches, but more so, actual debate in conversation. And to why this case is affected us all the way that it has. There's going to be a lot of conversation of it over the weekend. Because everybody goes off and gets into their last weekend of summer. Reading some more of the comments here before we wrap up, I get the criminal intent she needs to be put away not necessarily in prison, which again, that's what she asked for initially. And the Commonwealth said, no, we want this to go to trial. I'm wondering if maybe on the second route, cooler heads will prevail. Maybe how this ultimately does end. Heartbreaking, outrageous. It is definitely a large gamut of emotions on every side of this.

18:39And I got to say, this trial, I'm rather, I wasn't expecting this one to be as big as it was. I'm not quite, then everyone started seeing it and it turned into I would say probably one of the biggest trials of the year. If not the biggest trial of the year, other trials, several delays, the Gilgho never took place. But this one for not as, not having the publicity as some of the other ones that were coming up or that were to be scheduled. This one, what an emotional chord. It's certainly struck with, with many. I think the big, the big thing to look at is why. Why is that? I think that's some examination that needs to go on for everyone. All right. I think I'm going to wrap up our coverage of this. We've had a chance now to, to hear how this ends.

19:43And what happens next? Obviously, this is the end of the movie where you then see the preview for the sequel. Not quite sure what that trailer looks like yet, but there's more to come and we'll bring it to you. Be sure to press subscribe so you don't miss any of our continued coverage as the case against Lindsay Clancy. Unfortunately, continues. Want more on this case and others? Then press subscribe now and don't miss a moment of true crime coverage from Tony Brusky and the Hidden Killers podcast. This is Hidden Killers with Tony Brusky. Headlines, headline drops, a mother, a child, dead.

20:48Before anyone reads the second sentence, three words either have already landed in the title or in the comment section or the sub headline. This is what, when I say this, you're going to realize you've been seeing this a lot to you in the last two weeks. There's three words, another Lindsay Clancy. Three words and you feel like, oh, okay, we've identified what happened here right away. Just those three words in here. You think you know, you haven't. You just swapped a woman you've never heard of. For a woman, you already have opinions about whatever actually went wrong in that house, the specific medication, the specific doctor, the specific call that got logged and never returned. You decided you already knew.

21:50I'm not blaming you. This is what's going on. We're being fed in so many headlines right now. There's three words. The make us just stop thinking, another Lindsay Clancy. Oh, this is an easy one to compare. No, no, no, it's not. We need to stop doing this. What are those three words actually cost and who's paying for them? Well, Lindsay Clancy's case involves specific medications prescribed by specific doctors who made specific clinical decisions. The next case, whatever it may be, because I just, I keep seeing these headlines with cases that have nothing to do with Lindsay Clancy and are not really remotely like Lindsay Clancy. Other than the fact it involves a mother and children and usually death of some sort. And all of the factors that lead to there are nothing alike.

22:52The next case involves different medications, different doctors, different decisions. The only thing they share is the part that scares us too much to think past a mother and dead children. So we stop. We stop. And we think we've made a comparison because it's too lucky to really go a little bit deeper. That's not a comparison. A comparison examines two things. It examines this, this examines nothing. Say what another Lindsay Clancy actually means without the true crime vocabulary. And it's mother who went crazy and killed her kids. Andrea Yates drowned her five children in 2001 for 20 years after that. Every time a mother killed her children, Yates was a name people reached for different women. Different diagnoses, different failures. Didn't matter. Same shorthand. Yates was convicted in 2002, a retrial jury found her not guilty by reason of insanity in 2006 after hearing what postpartum psychosis actually does to a brain.

24:03In the 20 years since that case, I guess we haven't really taken that into account very strongly or understood it because we see more confused about it now than we did in 2006, despite understanding it more. But what we don't have, what we do have today that we didn't have in 2006 is TikTok. His Facebook, his Instagram, his social media, YouTube, everything. Those things didn't exist back then or they were in their very early infancy. That case got the conversation. Right. People heard the difference between psychosis and depression. I heard how a woman that ill could still look under normal conditions, looking functional to everyone around her.

25:03Doctors published papers, advocacy groups, organized around postpartum, maternal health screenings and awareness 20 years ago. People said they understood and for a while some of them actually did. In 20 years later, Clancy's case arrived and we reached for the same three words like we've never heard any of it. The awareness survived about as long as the news cycle because it was built on a name instead of an understanding. Now it's Clancy. The name changes every few years. The laziness is permanent. It seems there's there's sorting a new tragedy in a box they've already closed and scrolled past. The question that would actually matter, what specifically broke here? Who specifically missed it? Which decision or failure to decide ended with children dead? Never really gets asked. The answer doesn't fit the comment or the title so we don't bother asking. It's just, well, it's like this and we move on. Evil person, right? Just yeah.

26:08Why try to get ahead of these things and prevent the actual children from dying by helping the mother when she's begging for help? You know what? Crazy world are we living or we'd want to do that? We'd rather be offended, we'd rather be able to socially pivot and signal to our friends how good we are that we stand up for dead babies. To you stand up for dead, I don't think you stand up for dead babies. I know I stand up for dead babies. Do you stand tall enough for dead babies? That's the real question because I'm standing tall over here. We kind of agree with it. I'm standing even taller for the dead babies. Aren't you? What could you buy? Yeah. This grandstanding bullshit. When all of us are pretty much on the same page. Yes, dead babies are bad. No one is his pro dead babies. But if we'd like to not run into situations where this sort of stuff happens, we have to get ahead of it.

27:12We can't just treat women who have fallen into a state of mental illness, especially when they beg for help like in that case. In this case. We can't keep treating them like witches and burn them at the stake. There's a lot of scenarios in this case where I think a lot of us would feel differently. She was like, Scrut, this is me. I hate the kids. They're bad. Let's kill them. They're whatever even a lesser version of that. Just a I don't give a shit about my kids version of this, which clearly was not this woman. Be a lot less empathy. That would show some motive. That would show a pattern of wanting to get rid of kids. However, Lindsey Clancy shows none of that. These women weren't quiet. Two thirds of the mothers who committed filiside had a documented history of a mental disorder more than half were symptomatic at the time and documented.

28:15Someone in the system saw it wrote in a chart and didn't do anything about it. Or did it ask the right follow-up questions like a medical professional should do. But the comparison treats all of that as one diagnosis. Postpartum depression is not postpartum psychosis. Psychosis affects about one in a thousand new mothers. Untreated, it carries a filiside risk that should terrify you. It's a psychiatric emergency, not a bad week. A mother who told her family she was having thoughts about hurting her children is a completely different crisis than a mother who did everything because the culture told her good mothers don't feel that way. Different diagnosis, different failure, different person who could have done something and didn't and the mother who told people and the mother who hid it both needed different interventions that they didn't get. The comparison takes a hundred different breakdowns and files them under one word snapped. 41% of mothers with postpartum depression admitted two thoughts about harming their child. In studies where researchers actually asked them, 41% not rare, not unheard of. And when those researchers asked the clinicians how common those thoughts were the clinicians under estimated it.

29:32Women were telling the truth and the women's own picture of the problem was smaller than the actual problem. That means it's capacity to respond was designed for a crisis it believed was rarer than it was. A woman who found the courage to say something walked into a system that already decided her experience was very uncommon. So the odds of you actually feeling that way probably not we're going to treat it more like this over here because we really don't want to deal with what actually might be happening over here. We do this. This is human. This is very human. We all do this shit. Someone comes to you your kid comes to you your wife comes to you a loved one comes to you your business associate comes to you your your employee your co-worker whatever comes to you with something and it's uncomfortable and it's kind of yucky and you're like, you don't want to deal with this right now. I don't ever want to really deal with this so we tell ourselves it's fine not as bad as it's being made out to be and sometimes it's not people do catastrophize things.

30:35And if you're someone who tends to catastrophize things like myself. Sometimes you you tell yourself when it gets kind of bad or too bad you're like maybe it's not by them. We're not good at putting the actual weight on the crisis is that are directly in front of us. We as humans are not good at this skill we are not until it bites us and they ask so many times and they would actually is in front of us. We're like how do you not see this if you're like, uh. That's learned experience right there once you've been down the road a few times. Unfortunately, I everybody's got to go through it the first. Hopefully they don't ever have to but if they do it is a first. But we we oftentimes. We don't see how bad it can get the blind spot was in a mistake it was built into the clinical assumptions.

31:35Then comes the blame provider saw the symptoms documented the deterioration and moved on to the next patient and after all of that we decided. She didn't warn us she didn't try hard enough she should have done more. She told people and they put it in her chart and moved on her punishment for being failed by every system that existed to catch. This is being blamed for not screaming louder at people who weren't listening. More than 20 countries have laws that distinguish between a mother who kills during a postpartum psychiatric crisis and when it plans a murder with a clear mind. Those laws create a legal category that treats postpartum psychiatric crisis as a medical reality. They direct a mother in crisis to a forensic facility where she receives treatment and monitoring instead of a prison. Where she gets violated and deteriorates further. You know, America's idea of rehabilitation.

32:35We don't have that our legal system gives you two options guilty or not guilty by reason of insanity with nothing between. Premeditation and a complete break from reality. Another Lindsey Clancy fits. That binary perfectly crazy or evil pick one. No room for the truth that a woman can be desperately ill and desperately telling people she's ill and still be failed by everyone who heard her. We want justice for those children, do we? Because justice requires specifics and specifics require more than three words. If what happened to those kids is just another version of something you already processed, you've decided they're not worth their own answer. You use their deaths to confirm something you believe before you learn their names. Justice for a child means asking why the system that existed to protect them didn't. Which appointment should have triggered the intervention? Which screening failed? Which handoff between providers dropped the information that might have saved them?

33:39And in some cases, how did the mother actually fail them? Because there's plenty of cases where that happens. And identifying that clearly and being smart enough and understanding enough to know the difference. I mean specific doctors answering specific questions about specific decisions they made with specific information they had. A lazy comparison skips all that. Blames one person and every institution walks away clean. Reflex that makes someone a type, another Lindsey Clancy is the same reflex that made a nurses concerns go unanswered, unescalated. Same reflex that let a note sit in a chart without a follow up. Same reflex that absorbed a family's fear into a whole shell bounce back. Every one of these cases has a paper trail appointments kept prescriptions, fills, calls made to people who are supposed to know what to do.

34:40We talk about the system failing like it's weather. It isn't. It's a specific nurse who flagged a specific concern to a specific supervisor who decided it didn't meet the threshold. Every one of those failures has a name attached to it, a desk it sat on, and a moment when someone could have picked up the phone. The information was there, every appointment, every prescription, every concern logged. What wasn't there was someone willing to sit with what it meant and act before it was too late. And this is a situation where she reached out in every way possible. I get it. I get it in the situations where they don't, where there is no ask for help. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. I get that. There's plenty of mothers who just do this to their children and yes, they should burn for all of eternity.

35:43But you know what? There's a difference. And it helps no one by not seeing that or not even asking or not even trying to look. Reach out, talk to someone. That's the line after every one of these stories. We love that line. If you need help call this number. Guess what? She did. She did reach out and she did talk to someone and the someone she talked to documented it and noted it and clocked it. That message assumes a system works once you ask. These cases are what happens when you ask and the system doesn't. The entire burden of surviving landed on the sickest person in the room. We print reach out on posters and put it at the end of every news segment about cases like these. And when she follows those instructions and the system drops her, we tell her she just didn't follow them hard enough. She's another Lori Valow.

36:45The hospital documented her and didn't act. We read about her and didn't think the hospital got investigated for it. We got likes. It's the same act hearing a woman's name and deciding you know the story before she's done telling it. When a provider does that and someone dies, there's a review board. When we do it from the couch, it's a hard emoji. The comparison doesn't describe what went wrong. The comparison is what went wrong. The same refusal to look deeper repeated by different people in a different room. Three words used by people who consider themselves compassionate and formed engaged. People who follow the case share the articles, carry the opinions, comparison. That is the furthest thing from accurate. Compassion has one job. Those three words won't do. You have to look at something long enough to see what it actually is. Now what it reminds you of. The children deserve names not a category.

37:49The woman deserves specifics, not a shorthand. And we need to figure out why we keep reaching for the version that lets us stop thinking. Because that version is how we got here. Give me your thoughts in the comments section on Substack in YouTube. The links are in the description. If you're not already following the podcast, the audio form you can take us with you. Wherever you go, you can listen to us in the car, where you're in the gym, working out, whatever it may be on your devices. Take us with you. The link. You can scan the QR code right there on the video if you're watching us on YouTube. Takes you to Spotify or Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe. We do greatly appreciate that. I look forward to continuing that conversation, though, on Substack in YouTube. Those links are in the description. Tell me what you think. Until next time, my name is Tony Bursky. We will talk again real soon.